Page 35 of At Her Pleasure

At Bastion’s significant look at the black shirt, Cyn rolled her eyes, but fired her response at Vera. “Did you employ a drone to follow me, Miss Bond?”

Vera took her coffee from Bastion with a smile, and sniffed at Cyn. “I saw your truck when I left, and I was concerned. Security told me you left with Mick.”

“We know one another from years ago,” Cyn told Bastion as his thick black brow winged up. “We went somewhere to catch up.”

Bastion glanced at Vera. “Sounds like the top layer of the truth, like cake icing.”

“You have finger bruises on your wrist,” Vera noted, brushing her manicured nails over Cyn’s arm.

Cyn remembered how Mick had gripped her wrist during their sparring. She’d fought him. Fought hard until he’d had her decisively pinned. Then he’d helped her up, stepped back. And knelt.

What happened after surged into her mind, but before she could let it swamp her, she gave Vera the truth. Maybe still just that top layer, but the truth all the same. “Remembering the past can be dangerous.”

Vera gave her a concerned look. “Did he try to hurt you?”

The question startled her. They were used to how she sparred at Roughnecks, and how intense her sessions could get. Sometimes she let a sub get his hands on her. The way she drove them meant things could get crazy, in all the ways she liked, testing her wits and strength.

“No more than I tried to hurt him. It was all fine. Where’s the look coming from?”

“He feels…unpredictable. Like there’s something there, really dark and waiting. Just be careful, all right?”

“He’s okay, Vera.” Cyn didn’t want her friends worrying. “He did me a solid a long time ago. I don’t want to talk about it, but he’s fine. I trust him.”

Bastion looked as startled as Cyn had felt at Vera’s question. “You’re right,” he told the HR manager. “I need to meet this one. I’ve never heard those words come out of her mouth so unqualified. Even for us.”

It grated, but it was a fair assessment. Bastion and Ros’s team had more of her trust than Cyn had ever expected to give anyone. Except Mick.

She’d trusted Cissy, but that trust had been built in the trenches of the hell their childhood had been. A childhood Cissy hadn’t survived.

Cyn had, and part of the reason was she never gave her whole trust to anyone. You could love people without fully trusting them. It was better for the relationship. No unreasonable expectations.

“I know how sneaky you all can be,” Cyn said lightly, and turned the topic to work. “What time’s my interview with that new kid you want to bring on board?”

“The one three years younger than you?” Vera teased, though her gaze remained thoughtful.

“Don’t bait me, old lady. Aren’t you going to be forty soon? You should retire before you need a walker.”

“Ten o’clock.” Vera gave her a dagger look and Cyn grinned. The phone on Bastion’s belt started to vibrate, a call forwarded from the front desk. But as he picked it up and headed toward the foyer, Cyn was aware of the look he exchanged with Vera, still containing that what the fuck astonishment.

“I stopped by your office on the way down,” Vera noted, fortunately capitulating to Cyn’s desire to change the subject. “You had a fax from Ben O’Callahan. About sous vide cooking?”

“There’s no privacy here.” Cyn picked an apple out of the large fruit bowl. “Did you read it?”

“I skimmed the first page, since I saw his name and he’s Kensington & Associates’ lawyer. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something you needed my help with. I’m confused. You don’t cook.”

“You should have read it more carefully. It’s not about food.”

Vera processed that, then her eyes widened. “You two need to be on a watch list.”

“We’re on yours. The world is safe.”

Ben O’Callahan was a Dom sadist on par with Cyn herself. The joke at Progeny was if the two of them ever tag teamed, they’d have an ambulance on standby for the submissive foolish enough to volunteer for the session.

Luckily, Cyn preferred to be a solo act. No room for anyone else’s demons in the room with her and her chosen submissive. Ben had always seemed to be the same.

Cyn winked at Vera and left the kitchen, heading up the side stairwell to return to her office. She had work to do, though with the hours she put in, she stayed well ahead of deadlines. Which gave her time to plant her elbows on her desk, stare at her computer screen and think about last night. Pore over every moment, and what the next encounter might bring.

He'd agreed to be her bottom for the CNC scene. She’d told herself she’d turn down the offer today, tell him to find another Mistress for it. She should do that now. The club had set up a temporary email for him. She could send a message to it, so he'd have time to find a replacement.

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